From help-octave-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu Sun Nov 30 12:30:39 2003 Subject: Re: Starting using octave From: Etienne Grossmann To: acoohdb Cc: help-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu, etienne@cs.uky.edu Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:30:22 -0500 Hi Oz, On Sun, Nov 30, 2003 at 03:54:08AM -0600, acoohdb wrote: # # This is just an observation, for what it's worth. # # I did download octave, the 'complete' windows version, and after some # setting up (particularly setting the appropriate font) it seemed to be # functioning. # # However I had some problem deciphering the philosopy of it's # functioning, and eventually gave up. Probably it would have been fine # had I been given a short lecture on it, but the help didn't seem to be # that helpful. # # There are a number of 'styles' for mathematical/numerical programs that # I am familiar with. We have 'spreadsheet', and a variety of program # styles. I am familiar with pascal (turbo), basic and assembler. So, I'm # pretty inexperienced, in probably a narrow range, but not as green as # (say) a student. It's *very* unusual for me not to get an unknown # program up and running and in use relatively quickly with intelligent # use of what help is available. # # I would expect all modern programs to have a full-blown editor included, # and in the default (obviously capable of replacement for one of your own # choice if preferred). I would expect to start in the editor, and be able # to put in a sequence of instructions and run them. I would expect to be # able to save these instructions and edit them in full-screen, that is be # able to 'go up' and modify any bits of code that turned out to be wrong. # # As far as I could see the basic editor in octave seemed to be a line # editor, and there didn't seem to be any way to 'list' the actual # sequence of commands that octave was actually interpreting. The way I use octave is to switch from my editor, where I edit functions and scripts, and the octave command-line, where I test the scripts and functions, do calculations, view results, save them etc. I guess that's how it's meant to be used. History, when the readline library is available, can be accessed with the arrow keys and by doing control-r (backwards search). Emacs has an octave mode which is useful to edit octave code. There is no (afaik - people on the list, am I right?) spreadsheat-like input method. A matrix can be built with the commands: a = [1 2 3; 4 5 6] resulting in a 2-rows-by-3-columns matrix called a. Cheers, Etienne # After quite a bit of looking at various helps, and trying the sort of # thing that works on other bits of software, I gave up and after a month # deleted it. # # Since it is clear to me from reading this listserver that octave is a # powerful piece of software and clearly highly regarded by many, I think # this is a pity. I post this for comment, if anyone is interested. # # -- # Oz # This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious. # DEMON address no longer in use. # # # # ------------------------------------------------------------- # Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL. # # Octave's home on the web: http://www.octave.org # How to fund new projects: http://www.octave.org/funding.html # Subscription information: http://www.octave.org/archive.html # ------------------------------------------------------------- # ------------------------------------------------------------- Octave is freely available under the terms of the GNU GPL. Octave's home on the web: http://www.octave.org How to fund new projects: http://www.octave.org/funding.html Subscription information: http://www.octave.org/archive.html -------------------------------------------------------------